Zonama Sekot: The Aftermath
by Gia Alexander
Summary: After his failed attempt to subjugate Zonama Sekot, Wilhuff Tarkin incurs the wrath of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.


ZONAMA SEKOT: THE AFTERMATH CORUSCANT 

Supreme Chancellor Palpatine glared in disgust and disappointment at the disgraced young officer who stood before him, wrath building and burning from within the depth of his evil being. And to think he had actually considered this one to be his apprentice! This wayward hot-shot would soon keenly regret circumventing his authority and causing him to question his judgment.

Commander Wilhuff Tarkin felt himself trying to dig his boot heels into the metallic floor of the Chancellor's office. For too long a moment, it seemed, Palpatine just stared at him. Finally, he spoke, biting out his words of chastisement with metered anger. "Your exploits in the undercity last month can be described only as reckless and stupid, Commander," the Chancellor growled.

"The undercity—" Tarkin began, taken a bit aback. He had been anticipating the lecture for the debacle at Zonama Sekot from which he had just returned, having undertaken the expedition and appropriated resources without the Chancellor's knowledge or Senatorial approval. Instead, he found himself about to answer for his recent attempt on a Jedi at the underground podraces.

"You very nearly destroyed the boy!" Palpatine continued. "I cannot fathom such capricious defiance from you! Have you something to prove, Commander?"

Tarkin held his ground, and was quick to answer. "My plan, Your Excellency, was to attract the boy's master, and for the Blood Carver to kill Kenobi. He was not to endanger the boy's life, but to perhaps instill a bit of fear in him--"

"You used our most promising infiltrator as _bait_, Commander? To _dust _with your intentions! You know that aliens cannot be relied upon to correctly interpret orders! And it seems this one had a private agenda with the Trade Federation in retaliation for the boy's involvement at Naboo! How could you possibly overlook that? I thought you trusted no one!"

"I don't, Your Excellency, but your orders to me have been to discourage any increase in the Jedis' numbers and power. What better way to accomplish your goals than to eliminate the Jedi, one by one if we must?"

Palpatine slammed both fists onto his desk. "You arrogant, impulsive, insolent young _fool_!" he seethed as he stalked menacingly around his desk. "I've told you many times before, that boy is _special_. _He_ is the key to accomplishing our goals, as you put it, _if_ we play him right!" Palpatine continued as he approached. "You took the wrong approach, Commander! You could have very well undermined my entire plan with your impulsive, short-sighted games!" Adrian's military training and demeanor kept him in place, although he winced inside at the harsh criticism from his mentor and benefactor.

The Chancellor continued his tirade, pacing around the chamber. "And, it seems, you and your friends have quite the appetite for sport lately! You and Raith Sienar, in the Outer Rim last week. What_ever_ have you to say for _that_ stunt, Commander? You have, in one misguided action, ignored my authority, abandoned your post here on Coruscant, misappropriated Republic resources, and very nearly started an insurrection by directly engaging the Jedi! Your cover is now blown, Commander. If it weren't for that you had half a brain, I'd cut you down right here!" Palpatine continued angrily. He reached out then and pushed Adrian in the center of his chest.

Taken off guard at the sudden and unexpected aggression, Adrian stumbled backwards down the few steps that led up to the Chancellor's desk, landing hard on his back. Palpatine hovered over him. "In case you haven't realized it yet, my less than astute young neophyte, _you are mine_, and you orchestrate assassinations and subjugations as _I_ direct!" Just then, a soft chime sounded from one of the control panels in the Chancellor's desk. He looked around, then turned back to Tarkin. "On your feet, moron!" he demanded.

Adrian scrambled up and back to attention. Chancellor Palpatine then outstretched both hands in Adrian's direction. In the next instant, he was back on the floor as a barrage of silver-blue electricity seemed to emanate directly from the Chancellor's fingertips, enveloping his slight form in an excruciating lightning grip. It knocked the wind from him as he scrambled away in a vain attempt to escape. The attack stopped as abruptly as it had started as the door to the Chancellor's chambers hissed open. Adrian made his way to a column, pulled himself up, and tried to catch his breath, but nearly lost it again in shock when he saw who had entered the chamber.

"Oh, no! Typhani, get back!" he warned her. She stopped where she stood, and, for a moment, looked back and forth between the two men.

"What--" she started to ask. She had seen her husband last about ten standard days ago, when he left, he told her, to go look for and assist his friend Raith Sienar, who had come into a bit of trouble somewhere in the Outer Rim.

"Your husband, Lady Tarkin, has proved reckless and foolish," Palpatine hissed. At that instant, he raised his hands again, and sent another barrage of Sith lightning searing down at Adrian. He reeled away from the pillar and stumbled toward the far wall in another futile attempt to avoid the Chancellor's palpable wrath.

For a few seconds, Lady Tarkin stood frozen in place, stunned by the phenomenon that the Chancellor seemed to be creating with his bare hands. "Adrian!" she screamed as she bolted to his side just as he finally collapsed. The Chancellor nodded in satisfaction, having correctly anticipated Typhani's actions.

Adrian knew that Palpatine wasn't through with them. As they sank to the floor together, he tried to get on top of Typhani to shield her from the onslaught, but the Sith Master anticipated as much and moved too quickly for them. Typhani shuddered and cried out as the next hot streaks of energy struck her, and then engulfed them both.

Palpatine stood above them, throwing back his head and cackling sadistically, unmoved by the suffering and outcries of the two figures writhing at his feet, trying in vain to protect each other. Without the benefit of training in the Force to help them resist, they lay utterly defenseless. At last, Typhani's form went limp and she grew still as she fell unconscious. With his own consciousness fleeting, Adrian scrambled toward the door in an attempt to draw the Chancellor's fire away from his wife, but Palpatine pinned him down next to her. Only when he too fell unconscious did the attack finally subside.

Palpatine slowly descended the stairs and circled them. The air in the chamber hung heavy with the sulfurous odor of electricity, scorched fabric, and singed hair. His victims looked as though they had both received a severe sunburn, but he knew the shock and pain of it went far deeper than that. They would never defy him again, he knew. Palpatine summoned the guards and gave them their instructions. "Take them to a holding cell."

Several hours later, Adrian awoke, but he had no concept of the amount of time that had elapsed. A glance at his chronometer revealed its short-circuited and nonfunctional condition. He looked around quickly and, recognizing his surroundings, sat up stiffly. His head throbbed painfully, and he felt as though he'd had nothing to drink in days. For all he knew, he may have lain there for days.

A sideways glance revealed his wife's limp and motionless form crumpled on the bunk next to him. He snapped fully awake with a start. "Typhani?" he called out. No response. He pulled himself from the bed and stumbled toward her. Turning her onto her back, he brushed her disheveled hair out of her face. She moaned slightly at that, but opened her eyes only about halfway, staring past him. Adrian relaxed slightly at that initial response from her, but when he couldn't rouse her further, his concern piqued again, not only for her, but for himself as well. Circumstances were bad enough with the Chancellor, but if Typhani were gravely injured, or worse, Adrian rued how he could possibly explain such to her father, or, worse still, to her uncle, the renowned Grand Admiral Selden Motti.

Adrian made his way to the 'fresher unit in the corner of their cell, wet a washcloth, and returned to his wife's side. What would become of them now, he thought. Typhani hadn't done anything; she had been wholly ignorant of the entire expedition, save that he was going to look for Raith. This was all Raith's fault, he fumed, anger welling up in him again. Then came yet another unsettling thought—facing his own father.

Lady Tarkin finally stirred some hours later, stiffly shrugging the damp washcloth from over her eyes. "Adrian?" she called out as she raised up on one elbow. He was sitting on the other bunk with his back to her. He moved quickly to join her.

"Are you all right?"

She groaned. "What did he hit us with?"

"Some type of neuroweapon, I think. I've never seen it before. He must have had them around his wrists or concealed in his palms."

She knew well the workings of a neurolash, having first witnessed her father use one on wayward megonite harvesters, and then doing the same herself, though of course she had never been on the receiving end of its bite. Now she understood its effectiveness. The pain had been all-consuming, radiating throughout every fiber in her body, it seemed. Now she felt utterly parched, and as though she had a whole-body sunburn. She reached for the water flask on the small protruding shelf next to her bunk.

"No, wait," Adrian said. He took the flask from her, poured it down the sink, and refilled it. "That might have been drugged," he warned her as she eagerly gulped down half of the cool, fresh water.

"Where's Raith?" she asked weakly. "Did you find him?"

"Oh, yes, I found him! As for where he is now, I don't know and I don't care!" he seethed. "He's the reason we're in this predicament now! He ruined everything! He didn't listen to me! He changed the attack strategy and the droids' programming! By the time I got there, it was far too late to correct the situation! If he had only done as I had told him, this debacle never would have happened!"

She knew the "debacle" he spoke of must be very bad for them to be in a Senatorial holding cell, a unit reserved for higher ranking beings usually being held pending hearings before committees or the full Senate itself.

"Wait. You mean you _sent_ Raith to the Outer Rim?"

"Yes, unfortunately. A simple planetary subjugation. Primitives! Like taking pittens from younglings!" He shrugged in exasperation. "He botched the whole operation!"

"Can you tell me what happened? Where did you go?"

He remained silent for a moment.

"They're real, Typhani!"

"What?"

"Organic spaceships! There's a planet where the natives grow large, shell-like lobes, and then fit them out with the necessary instrumentation! The things are incredible! They register at point-five past light speed. I sent Raith out to take the place so that we could present it to the Chancellor, and grow an entire fleet! Since the Jedi were involved, essentially leading us to the planet, I sent Ke Daiv--that big, nasty alien that scared you in the hallway--with Raith for protection. But no! He went renegade on me! By the time I got there, we had to launch a full-scale attack, which didn't succeed, and so we had to settle for taking one of the ships instead. Raith and I were going to try to duplicate its design. It belonged to the boy who took the droid into the Jedi Temple. That's how I knew to follow him and his teacher out there. We were a mere _two minutes_ from docking with the flagship when that accursed Obi-Wan character I told you about came alongside our cargo ship, cut through the bay doors with his laser-sword, and took the boy _and _the ship! I have _got _to get that child away from that lecherous Obi-Wan and get _rid_ of him!" He was obviously starting to become agitated again as the tone of his voice rose to a shrill rant and the color on his face waxed near violet. "And so now, thanks to Raith, we have absolutely _nothing_ to show for the entire campaign!"

"Can't you regroup and try again?"

"Try _what_ again?"

"To take the planet? To get another ship for the Chancellor? Can't you go back with more ships, more firepower?"

He stared at her for a moment. "No. The planet isn't there anymore!"

"But I though you said . . . Adrian, how in the universe did you destroy an _entire planet_?"

"We didn't. I know this sounds as preposterous as organically grown ships, but someone--or something--installed massive hyperdrives _inside_ this planet! They literally went hyper, damaging several of our ships in the process! We have no idea where they've gone."

"You're right. It sounds awfully preposterous," Typhani admitted, sipping from her water flask again.

Adrian reached out and took her by the shoulders. "It happened," he insisted.

"Then aren't you missing the fantastic for the sake of the fanciful?"

"What?"

"A _planet_ that can _move_, Adrian? Granted, being able to grow lightweight ship hulls might save somewhat on shipbuilding costs, but think of it! An entire planet _mobile_? What could you do with technology like that? You have no idea who developed it, who installed the hyperdrives?"

"None, but I'll have to research it." Then he remembered. Raith had designed something quite similar, a Mobile Expeditionary Planetoid, he had called it. With such technology, he thought, beaming at his ever-astute wife and recalling his discussion with Raith about the design, one could control entire sectors! The technology--perhaps the combination of both technologies--indeed had immense strategic military potential. He had not made the connection. A most fortunate coincidence indeed! _Something _to offer the Chancellor for his recent exploits! But he and Raith were not speaking.

Somewhere in the cell a soft tone sounded, alerting the occupants that the door was about to open. Both Tarkins rose to their feet, and Adrian approached the door cautiously. It hissed open to reveal a middle-aged junior Senator accompanied by a security officer. Typhani stayed just behind Adrian, and saw and felt him stiffen reflexively to attention. The Senator, whom they recognized as Bail Organa of Alderaan, stepped forward slightly, into the doorway. He spoke only to Adrian.

"The Chancellor has directed me to inform you that you are hereby relieved of your command in the Republic Outland Region Security Forces, and that the Galactic Senate no longer requires your services." Typhani quickly covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a gasp as the Senator continued. He might as well have run Adrian through with a vibroblade. "You and your wife are to be removed to Eriadu at once, as private citizens. Your father has been alerted to expect you. Your personal effects from your quarters here on Coruscant have been packed and prepared for shipment as well. Come along!"

Adrian could neither speak nor move. Both the Senator and the unknown officer accompanying him glared annoyingly. Finally, Typhani stepped up behind Adrian and put an arm around him. "Come on," she whispered. "We'll figure it all out."

He only nodded slightly, obviously in shock, and walked stiffly, almost droid-like, next to her. To magnify the indignity, they soon realized that they were being sent back on a commercial flight rather than the military cruiser or Senatorial shuttle to which they had become accustomed.

Organa left them at the boarding ramp with a final insult. He shook his head. "What a disappointment. Surely Ranulph is spinning in his grave! I hope you've learned your lesson, not that it matters much now."

"Hey, you Rimkins come on," the boarding agent punctuated. "We've already held this transport an hour! Let's go!" Organa chuckled slightly at the jibe. Tarkins, Rimkins, all one and the same to him.

"Rimkins indeed!" Typhani snarled under her breath as she stomped up the ramp. Too many times she had been the butt of that sneer directed at those not from the Core Worlds.

Adrian was about to explode with rage. He silently vowed revenge against Organa, and would have attempted to slay him then and there had just enough better judgment not remained clear in his mind not to assault a Senator.

Yet something savage in Tarkin's icy blue eyes sent a shiver down Organa's spine. "Hey, don't blast the messenger," he thought. He barely knew Adrian, though he had known his great-uncle, Senator Ranulph Tarkin, quite well. Not since the end of the Stark Hyperspace War on Troiken had a Tarkin been stationed on Coruscant in service to the Senate, and now it looked as if the legendary Eriaduan dynasty would have to wait yet another generation to once again make its mark.

As the space cruiser exited Coruscant's atmosphere, Typhani looked over at her husband. He sat bolt upright in his seat, staring straight ahead. He gripped the armrests such that the veins stood out on the backs of his hands. She put a hand on his shoulder, only to realize how tense he was. She detected a bit of a tremble as well. "You've got to calm down," she said softly. "Talk to me."

"Not now, Typhani," he said sternly through a clenched jaw. "I can't talk. I have to figure out what to do!"

She didn't relent. "Listen, we don't have to go to Eriadu. We can divert to Phelarion at Corulag," she suggested.

He jerked his head around in her direction and snapped at her incredulously. "And so you'd make me out as a coward before my own family as well! Is that what you think of me?"

"No, of course not. But you know how unreasonable they can be."

He winced, albeit slightly. He scrambled out of his seat, over his wife, and made for the cruiser's observation deck. Alone before a vast viewport, he grasped the rail, breathing hard.

_ERIADU_

"Adrian, what in the name of the cosmos is going on?" his sister Morgana demanded as she and a cadre of servants from their family estate, Villa Galaxia, met them at the Eriadu City spaceport.

"It's Raith's fault."

"Raith hasn't just been dishonorably discharged and very publicly shipped home! The tabvids are going to have a field day! Now what happened?"

Reluctantly, Adrian recounted the entire story again to his sister on the way to Villa Galaxia. Upon arrival, he, Morgana, and Typhani tried to make unnoticed for their upstairs apartments, but the senior Wilhuff Tarkin had something else in mind as he, his wife Marganitha, and his other son, Gideon, intercepted the group. Adrian knew he would have to face down his parents, but including that nerd Gideon in the matter was entirely too much for reason.

'Well, well, look at this! What an utter disgrace! I have just had the extreme displeasure of a lengthy conversation with the Chancellor's assistant," Adrian's father admonished him.

"Which one?"

"Pestage, but what does it matter? Whatever made you think you could carry off such a ridiculous caper? Have you forgotten everything you have ever learned?"

The elder Tarkin turned to his other son then, addressing him sternly. "Now it is your chance to make something of yourself, Gideon. I should take full advantage of the situation if I were you."

Gideon saluted his father smartly. "Yes sir. I will, sir!"

At that, Wilhuff senior turned his back on his namesake and walked out of the room.

Adrian and Gideon locked gazes, their blue eyes flashing menacingly at each other. Morgana and Typhani held their breath. The smug look on Gideon's face was one of vindictive and opportunistic vengeance. Morgana reflexively reached out for Adrian as he lunged to attack their younger sibling. Typhani soon joined her in the effort to hold him back.

"No, Adrian, you'll just make things worse," Morgana admonished.

Gideon stepped up to his now adequately restrained older brother and pointed in his face. "No more. I've taken your crap since the day I embarked on this incarnation, and I've had my fill. If I have ever been anything less than you it is only because you have kept me down, but no more!" He turned smartly on his boot heel then, and strode toward the door, pausing briefly to turn back and point decisively at his brother once again. "No more!" He then brushed past his mother and strode down the main colonnade.

Marganitha had been watching bemusedly from the drawing room door, an ever-present wine glass couched delicately in her hand. She scowled at Adrian and Typhani, and addressed the hapless couple with a smirk. "I assume the two of you will be departing for backwater Phelarion presently?" She cocked her head and stared pointedly at Typhani. "After all," she continued sarcastically, "you're the 'real Lady Tarkin now,' remember? Well, congratulations, dear. What a fine catch."

Typhani's hands left her husband's shoulders and landed in a gesture of exasperation on her full round hips. "They're throwing us out?" she seethed. "Fine!"

"Enough!" Adrian exclaimed roughly, twisting away from his sister. He ran after his mother, and his sister chased after him. Marganitha turned and cast the contents of her glass into her son's face, taking him completely off guard.

"You don't know what you've done," she told him coldly. She took a step closer. "You have no idea. Now you have brought a pestilence down on this galaxy such that it has never experienced before. It may take time, but you'll see. Someday, you'll reap the poison thorns of what you've just done. You can't turn back the dark tide of ruin now."

Wiping at his face, Adrian dismissed his mother's prophecies as nothing more than her usual drunken babble. Yet his rage and fury remained unquenched. After all, he would have never thought to follow the Jedi to Zonama Sekot had it not been for his mother's stories wafting back from his childhood, fantastic tales of a garden planet where spaceships were grown.

PHELARION 

Baron Nostremi Octovano heard a commotion outside his office door. Not expecting any clients that afternoon, he rose to investigate, only to be met by his daughter. "Hello, Papa," she greeted with a hug.

"What? You no call first? What you doing here?"

"Uh, well, Adrian's got a bit of a—a . . . dilemma. We've come to take a break so he can work it out," she evaded. By the time Typhani finished catching up on the latest developments in the family business with her father, it was nearly dark, and completely so by the time she returned to her bedchamber, where she had left her husband.

Adrian paced back and forth before the large arched windows of their bedchamber, still tense. "I can't stay here, Typhani! I have to do something!" he insisted.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, putting her hands on his shoulders.

The question hit him hard. He had never failed before. Never! Not even on a school exam! And now, within a matter of days, everything he had ever worked for and dreamed of had been stripped from him—career, reputation, even his own family had cast him out. The question was indeed a good one—what _would_ he do now? What _could _he do? Everything was gone! Everything! Almost. All but one something.

"Adrian?"

All the apoplectic color of rage had drained from his face, and he trembled from sheer stress. With nowhere else to turn, he clasped to him the only thing he had left. Typhani returned the embrace, somewhat relieved.

"You knew nothing of what Raith and I were doing. Palpatine had no right to hurt you!"

She shook her head. "It would take a lot more than some palm-sized neuroshock device to take me down, and he knows it."

"That's not the point, and you know it."

"Let it go, Adrian."

But 'letting go' was simply not programmed into Wilhuff Tarkin's vocabulator.

The next morning, Lady Tarkin awoke to find herself alone in her bed.

CORUSCANT 

Raith Sienar found himself in a battle for his life, his reclusiveness now very likely his undoing. His calls for help had gone unanswered. The severely malfunctioning experimental droid squeezed its pincers deeper into Sienar's left arm, tearing the flesh and causing blood to spurt from the compromised vessels. With his right arm, he reached desperately for a circuit interrupter that lay just out of reach on a nearby work table. Then the droid extended another appendage and drove an electrode through Sienar's work apron and clothing into the underlying flesh, releasing its painful charge on contact.

Raith struggled to pull the droid with him toward the work table, all the while kicking at its underside with his durasteel-toed boots. A shower of sparks emanated from the malfunctioning machine then, raining down in his face and temporarily blinding him. He unwittingly stumbled past the workbench and the tool he needed, sprawling into a tool case instead, shattering its glass door. He grappled for anything he could ram into the droid's circuitry, but the droid shocked him again, and he shouted out in pain and frustration.

"Raith, don't move!" came a voice from across the workshop that sounded not too unlike his own. Then a powerful blaster bolt tore through the attacking droid, sending him to the floor under its shattered hulk, stunned, out of breath, and barely coherent. Then someone heaved the wrecked robot off of him.

As the flash blindness wore off, Raith looked up to see either his best friend or his arch enemy—he wasn't sure which—crouching over him, tearing away a piece of his work apron to staunch the profuse bleeding from his tattered left arm..

"Adrian?"

"You're hurt badly, Raith. You're bleeding out. I have to get help, but I'll be right back."

Raith fell back against the cool duracrete of his workshop floor, not quite completely reassured. The two of them had parted but days before an the worst of terms.

Adrian went in to see his friend as soon as his bacta treatment was complete, as an emdee droid finished placing a protective dressing on Raith's still tender limb.

"They say you'll mend just fine in a few more days," Adrian reassured him.

"You came here to kill me, didn't you?" Raith accused, still stung from the implications of their recent failed mission. Adrian only looked away, not sure how to answer that. "Why didn't you just let the droid finish its work?"

"I don't know," Adrian admitted.

"According to you, friendship is a thing of the past, no?"

"Blastit, stop it, Raith! If I had wanted to kill you, I would have left you on that damned cargo ship and taken the escape pod for myself! It was you who tried to turn the tables on me, all of which resulted in—in—"

"What?"

"You don't know? Well, no, of course you wouldn't, hermited away still playing with your toys as we did a decade ago! I've been discharged from the military, Raith, quite dishonorably at that, and relieved of my Senate appointment as well! I'm done for—_ruined_—because of _you_!"

Raith raised up from his bed a bit. "_You're_ ruined? I'll have you know that you don't know the meaning of the word! I've lost _all_ of my Republic contracts, as well as that most lucrative private one I told you about before the mission! That was my _best chance_ to develop stealth technology superior to Soro Suub and Kuat, and my only shot at an experimental cloaking device, no less! The Xi Char have summarily ended our collaboration, and, to add insult to injury, they will no longer accept human apprentices or collaborators! So much for your vision of us humans as the future!"

They both fell silent for awhile. A long, uncomfortable while.

"We have to set about making this right, Raith," Adrian finally ventured.

"_You_ got us into this mess. _You_ figure it out."

Adrian rose. "_You_ deviated from the plan we'd agreed upon, which has resulted directly in 'this mess,' as you put it. I have some ideas, regarding that secret project of yours that you showed me, coupled with the hyperdrive technology we witnessed on Zonama Sekot. I'll be back later. In the interim, I have another score to settle."

"The Chancellor will not see you," Raith chided, letting Adrian know that he was indeed aware of recent events. Adrian just sighed in exasperation as he left the room.

"Tracked and intercepted as you ordered, Your Excellency," one of the blue-robed guards reported as the other prodded the Chancellor's quarry toward him.

"Well done. When the other one arrives, allow him to sneak past you. Dismissed," Palpatine declared, then turned to the subject they had delivered to him. "You two don't give up easily, do you?"

The young dark-haired woman brazenly met his gaze on level. "We returned here as private citizens. You placed no restrictions on our travel."

Palpatine circled her warily, cocked his head, and cracked a wry smile at her. "Ah, my dear Typhani, you must broaden your horizons. You interpret some circumstances a bit too literally." He raised his hand to point at her.

She caught his wrist and forced it above his head. "Put your neurotoys away, Cos. You made your point with my husband, and perhaps rightly so. I grant you that he stepped outside of protocol, but he did so with your interests in mind. You haven't given him the opportunity to present to you that set of facts. You might find them very interesting." She pushed his arm back, and released it. "Now, I would like to know what your issue is with _me_." She continued to look him in the eye.

"I see you have no ill effects from my 'neurotoys.'"

She set her jaw. "None."

"Excellent. You are a strong one, Lady Tarkin. Although, your defiance and lack of deference here do not become you."

"Oh, yes they do. They most certainly do," she insisted, and did not break her gaze.

He smiled.

Then the door to his offices hissed open, and a slender figure strode in, teeming with arrogance and anger. Upon seeing his wife once again in the Chancellor's grasp, Adrian turned to rage, but abruptly stopped where he stood, assessing the situation. Typhani seemed unharmed, for the moment.

Palpatine turned on his heel to face him, then stalked toward him, placing himself between the Tarkins.

"She has done nothing to you! You have no right!"

"In case you haven't been paying attention to events in the Senate lately, I would remind you that I now have the right to do virtually whatever I want. And yet you would dare defy me?"

"I would do worse than that!" Adrian's right hand slipped under his robe to the hilt of his blaster.

"Would you? You want to kill me, don't you?" Palpatine sighed and turned his palms up to indicate his supposedly unarmed and defenseless status. "And all over a mediocre military appointment? Does your pride really mean that much to you? Have you really nothing better to do with your life back on Eriadu?"

Adrian pulled the blaster and aimed it squarely at Palpatine's chest.

"Well, in that case, then, I suppose I'd better reconsider. Very well, Commander. Quite well done, in fact."

"What?" Adrian snapped, but did not lower his weapon.

"Put it away, Adrian. I think I understand," Typhani said, and approached the two men cautiously.

Palpatine turned to her. "Do you?" But he knew that she did.

He elaborated. "Only thinking beings can effectively challenge authority, and only the most tenacious and courageous among those dare act on their convictions."

Adrian lowered his blaster in realization. He had been tested, and he had passed. And yet Typhani's involvement remained a mystery to both of them. But not for long.

Palpatine turned and walked back to his desk as Typhani joined her husband. "Please, be seated," the Chancellor addressed them. "I have a new project in mind."

Adrian dutifully reached under his robe and pulled out his datapad. Palpatine smiled and shook his head at the young officer. "Not you," he said flatly. "Her!" He pointed decisively at Typhani.

"What? Me?"

"Yes, my dear. You've proven yourself very well suited for the role. It seems I need—how shall I put it—a _hand_ with something . . . "


End file.
